Music: Opera in Space

After the nuclear explosion that atomized the planet Doris, the
scientist named Mimarobe was seized by the space cadets and thrown into
Captain Chefone's dungeon, accused of fouling the radiation apparatus
that powered the electronic brain. As presented in Stockholm's Royal
Opera House last week, this kind of interstellar meller was meant not
for science-fiction escapists but for devotees of avant-garde music.
Occasion: the premiere of Swedish Composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl's
Aniara, widely hailed as the first operatic excursion into the world of
outer space.

Based on a "space cycle" by Swedish Poet Harry Martinson, Aniara proved
to be a lengthy allegory about...